It seems whenever I do a search for ANYTHING, I always get a few pages of huge swap messages before I get any real project results. I know you can use advanced search and everything, but I think it would be great to not include posts on the swap boards automatically.

I know it's not a practical suggestion and I should use advanced search, but it's so annoying to type in "Japanese lucky cat" and get Cat Lovers Swap and ATC Swap as the first few results.

What if the default for searching was only listings of completed projects? One could select all boards in advanced search.

The reason I suggest this is because first time users may come to the site, enter a search item, and then become confused when only discussion topics and swap related topics are returned.

For example, I just typed "hello kitty" into the search field. The first three posts are all swap related. For a first-time user, that is like reading a foreign language.

My friend wanted to see examples of homemade books, so of course I told her to come here. Her first instinct was to use the search engine, but she couldn't understand the search results I gave her the link for completed papercraft and bookmaking projects.

Sometimes I just want to see what people have made that has to do with some theme (e.g. Passover, the upcoming big Jewish holiday). I don't want to go into advanced search and select all the completed boards.... I would prefer to just type in "passover" and see some crafty goodness

hey guys-so ive been trying to search for things and for a while my searches were turning up items that were not really relevant-and then id search for a swap that i knew existed and it wouldnt show up, or at least not until 20 pages later!is there any way this can be fixed? its really annoying me!

i have to agree. for a long time now i dont even use the search feature much because its so sporadic. i just searched dog diaper( which i know theres a lot of on here or used to be) and just cant find anything, even with advanced search. i like craigslists search system, you just type in two words and it matches pretty well. i looovve craftser, but the search makes me sad.